


The Hangover Cure

by Skyepilot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Drinking, Eating, F/M, Food, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Hangover, Humor, Implied makeouts, Kissing, Love, Love Confessions, Memory Loss, Motel Rooms, Older Man/Younger Woman, Sappy, Vodka, gross flavored vodka, mention of Daisy's van, shared junk food obsessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-11 02:48:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7873177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/pseuds/Skyepilot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by tumblr convos.  Daisy and Coulson wake up in a motel hungover and try to remember what happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hangover Cure

The light feels like someone is stabbing something sharp into the back of her brain and everything inside her wants to flip her body over, and hide her face against the sheets.

But as her hand flops out, it makes contact.  With something soft and warm, and her squinting eyes follow the path to see her hand resting against a fluff of peppery hair.

It’s attached to a chest. To Phil Coulson’s chest.

The night before isn’t exactly coming back all at once, and as she delicately tries to withdraw her hand, she feels the humming noise rumble through him, before it becomes a sound, and his eyes slowly blink open peering at her in the fuzzy morning haze.

They’re bluer than she remembers, for some reason.

“Hey,” he manages to mutter, lazy smile and all, and then yawns.  She knows the exact moment when he’s realized, just as she had moments before, that this-

“Oh.”

She closes her eyes and puts the heel of her hand against her brow, trying to not make this worse than it looks. Hoping that _maybe_ he’s not going to talk it out right now.

There was alcohol.  _A lot._   Gross flavored vodka with something that she can still taste?  It’s kind of nauseating even thinking about it.

The empty bottle is right there on the other nightstand across from her, glaring back.  There’s a glazed donut on the label.

He grunts and sits up in the bed, blocking her view, as she ducks her face against the pillow, covered by a messy morning mop of hair.

She cracks an eye to see him checking discreetly whether he actually has some clothing on beneath the sheet.

It must be an all clear, because he sighs in relief and bangs his head a little against the headboard, as he makes the minimum amount of effort to look around the room. Like he’s puzzling it all out.

“I guess we celebrated?”        

It makes her feel a little better that he seems to be as confused as she is.

They had a close call the night before, that part is solid. They managed to lose Watchdogs on her tail, but they had to ditch her van.

Her van.  It’s still out there.

“Shit,” he says, and runs a hand over his face.  “I’m glad I’m not Director.  Because this? This looks-“

“Bad?”

The expression she’s making must startle him.  When she pushes herself up on her elbows to look at him, he already looks half apologetic.

“It looks unprofessional. Of me,” he tells her, trying to soften it. “Can you not -”

“That’s what my face is when I’m hungover,” she interrupts, drawing her knees up under and slouching forward, partially sitting up. “This face.”

He nods at her, giving her a wary look, training his eyes on her, but she can tell he’s trying to trust his instincts.

“We drank a whole bottle of that cheap vodka.  Was it your idea?” he asks like he’s not really asking, but that he’s getting ready to accuse. “I think it was.”

Yup.

“I didn’t have much cash on me,” she remembers, smiling a little. “We wanted to celebrate.”

“Did we even eat actual real food?” he wonders, and she’s not looking at him anymore, she’s starting to feel comfortable with the fact that she’s sitting here in her bra and he’s not even batting an eye.

One of her favorite ones, actually.  It’s purple and has some yellow trim on it.

“Oh, look,” she laughs in surprise, reaching down to her cleavage. “A Cheeto.”

He looks at it longingly enough that she feels sorry for him, and holds it out until he shakes his head and waves her away with a hand.

“I’m too old for this,” he laughs.  He actually laughs.

Phil Coulson laughs.

And then he laughs even harder when she pops the Cheeto into her mouth in front of him, and shrugs at the look he’s giving her.

“Oh, God, it hurts,” he tells her, as he starts to regain control, and puts his hand against his stomach.  “I haven’t been this hungover since I was-“

She raises an eyebrow at that.

“Younger,” he finishes, peering at her.  “You have-“

The back of her hand runs across her mouth, and he reaches forward around her flurry of activity, brushing his thumb along the end of her nose.

“Cheeto dust.”

“Thanks.”

She has to look elsewhere to keep from flushing, and so it’s at the room. The room isn’t very nice.  The place is worn down, but they came in the middle of the night and it just looked like shelter at the time. 

He’s right, this does look pretty bad.

Seeing his clothes scattered all over the floor and hers there as well.  If they did it she would totally remember, right?

The idea of them doing it and her not even remembering is _the worst possible scenario_ , she can feel the panic starting to set in.

“I don’t think anything happened?” he suggests, grimacing at her grimace.

“We just totally got wasted and ate Cheetos half naked then passed out. Sure, Jan.”

He gives her a really perturbed look at that.  “Pretty sure I would remember if we-“

It’s like he can’t even bring himself to say the word, and he presses his lips together and she’s sure the tips of his ears are turning pink.

“It _is_ kind of stuffy in here,” she sniffs, wondering if she smells, and sees the offending vodka bottle in view again.  “Can you just, knock that off the nightstand?  I feel like it’s accusing me.”

“You want me to punish the empty vodka bottle?” he asks sarcastically, picking it up to look at the label.

She can tell he’s considering something serious and then leans forward slightly to sniff at the opening in the bottle before he makes a gagging face.

“I can’t believe you just did that,” she laughs at him. “That’s gross.”

“My stomach just went on strike,” he complains, sticking his tongue out. “Disgusting.”

“You!” she suddenly remembers, pointing a finger at him. “You were the one who was craving those little packets of donuts!”

He rolls his eyes at her and then extends his arm to drop the bottle to the floor on the carpet in a dramatic display.

“Happy?”

“No, I’m _starving_ , and we’re broke, until we can get back to my van,” she groans, leaning her shoulder against the headboard.

“We can just hop in the shower, sober up, maybe the motel has free stuff?”

She sighs.  It’s like they skipped all the fun parts and are just left with the day-after hangover.  What were they even celebrating?

He looks at her with a confused expression when she starts to chuckle to herself, when it comes back to her.

“We were celebrating your _demotion_ ,” she tells him. “Remember?  That you’re an agent again.  And you were making fun of the Director’s choices in ties.”

“Oh, yeah.  ‘Cheer up still dead guy.’  I was being kind of petty, I guess.”

“If you were Director though, you wouldn’t be here right now,” she adds, watching that soft look spread over his face.  “You wouldn’t have been there yesterday when I needed you.”

The way his eyes light up when they meet hers.  She missed that.  The tenderhearted Director of SHIELD. 

And now he’s just tenderhearted Agent Phil Coulson.

“What if-“ she begins, then hesitates. “What if something was going to happen, but we got too drunk?”

“What if we got too drunk because we were both afraid that something was going to happen?” he replies with a smirk.

“That’s probably exactly true,” she agrees. “This all suddenly makes total sense.”

It makes her feel self-conscious, saying it out loud, even though it sounds joking and light hearted. Everything between them has always been this complicated.

“I think we’re still both a little drunk,” he mumbles, smiling to himself in that way that seems so internal, and it’s the part she’s always wanted to know the most.

“Hey,” she asks, pushing her hair behind her ear, and leaning in closer. “You’ve never let me see your scar until now.”

The ask shakes him out of his head and he points his chin down at his chest to look at it.  “That’s true. Does it make you uncomfortable?”

“No, it’s just a part of you that I’ve never seen before.”

“You said that last night,” he suddenly says, like he plucked something beautiful out of the air. “You asked me to take my shirt off.  Because you wanted to tell me what happened wasn’t my fault.”

She slowly nods back at him. It’s definitely starting to come back for her. “I can get a little bossy,” she admits.  “Sorry.”

“A _little_?” he teases. “I mean, it was a very rousing speech, from what I can remember.”  His face looks like he’s fondly beginning to recall it, and then freezes.

“What?” she prods, when he doesn’t say anything, then shakes his shoulder. “Coulson.”

“I think we might’ve kissed,” he says, apologetically, turning his shoulders to give her all his attention.  “But, that’s it,” he goes on, gesturing to her. “I’m pretty sure.”

“I don’t-” she pauses, trying to remember. “Oh. Oooohhh.”  She remembers. “Yeah.  We did.”

That’s the last thing she remembers, actually.  And also, lots of tongue and it being too warm, and not knowing where to put her hands first. 

Too many clothes between them and too many words all jumbling together at the moment.

“And then you passed out,” he goes on, helpfully. “So, icebreaker, it happened, no big deal.”

She narrows her eyes in concentration, trying to push past the hovering hangover cloud. “Did you tell me that you love me?”

“Yes.  Probably,” he admits, running his hand across the stubble on his chin, scratching at it.

“ _Probably_?” she asks, sitting up straight.

“No, I did,” he answers pointedly. “Because, it’s true. It’s always been tr-”

It doesn’t matter if there’s the syrupy after taste of vodka lingering there, it’s worth it just to kiss him again.  And she wants to.  Kiss him. Hold onto this, memorize it.

“ _Daisy_.”

The way he says her name, with his eyes still closed, like he’s in some kind of dream makes her whole body start to tingle.

It’s almost like the hangover isn’t even there.                                                                                                         


End file.
